All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (19 page)

Only when we went inside, Daddy and Kellen and Butch were there.

“Hey, come here, kiddo,” Daddy said. Then he saw Wavy.

He yelled, “Sandy! Sandy!” until she came. She musta been in the shower, because she had a towel on her head.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” Sometimes I thought Daddy couldn't see Wavy, but he pointed at her.

“But you said you wanted the kids to move down here. You—”

“I said, ‘The
kid
.' Donal. Not her.”

“You—what do you want me to do?” Sandy said.

“Get her out of here. Take her back up to the farmhouse.”

“I'll take her,” Kellen said.

After Wavy left, I didn't want it to be fun living at Daddy's. It wasn't fair if I had fun and she didn't. But there were puppies, and then Daddy bought me a motorbike and taught me how to ride it. Anyways, Wavy didn't really want to live there, and I still got to see her. Sometimes she came with Kellen, and sometimes she snuck in to see me. Some mornings, before anybody else woke up, I went across the meadow to the farmhouse. That was the best.

 

13

KELLEN

Plenty of times I'd wanted to beat the crap out of Liam, but never as bad as I did when he told Wavy to get out. Her whole face went blank, and stayed that way until we walked out to the front drive. She scowled when she saw the Willys.

“The bike's at the shop,” I said. “I got tired of it being dinged up. We'll have to ride in the truck for a while.”

Wavy shuffled her feet, but she let me take her hand and help her up into the truck.

“You know, this is Old Man Cutcheon's truck. Good truck. Plus, it's the same age as his son. He thinks that's good luck. He sold this to me a couple years ago, when his grandkid was born, and bought himself that new Ford. He's still proud of this Willys, though. Says it's never broke down on him.”

She knew all about the truck; I was only trying to fill up the quiet.

“You wouldn't want to live down at the trailers anyway. It's noisy and they smoke. Makes the place stink. You wouldn't like that.”

When I turned to go up the road to the farmhouse, she said, “No.”

I couldn't blame her for not wanting to go up there. Val laid up in bed, with a nurse there—some stranger. I turned around and drove the route we took around the lake on the bike, but it wasn't the same in the truck. I was sorry I'd sold the Barracuda, even though I made good money on it. Piss poor timing on my part. Once we reached the Powell city limits, there were only two options: my house or the shop.

“Is there somewhere you want to go, Wavy?”

After a second, she pointed at me.

“Yeah, we can go to my house.”

“Live with you,” she said.

“You can't live with me.”

She pretty much had been while Val was in the hospital. That had to end now.

I didn't know what else to say, so I drove to my place and pulled into the carport. Wavy sagged back in her seat, staring out the windshield at the faded asbestos siding on the garage. She looked so small and tired, like my ma before she died.

“It's not me, Wavy. Other people wouldn't like you living with me, since I'm not your family. Maybe you could go live with your aunt. They're your family.”

It made a kinda sense, but that was about the last thing I wanted. Tulsa was a long drive, and the way her aunt looked at me, it wasn't like I'd be able to visit Wavy there. But maybe things would be better for her without me. Maybe she could have a regular life with good people.

“Well, what if we…” I racked my brain trying figure out something. There was the spare bedroom. I could put the weight bench out in the garage. Get a bed in there. Except it didn't fix the real problem. Her living with me.

“Get married,” she said. Had she heard what Liam said at the hospital? Man, I hoped she didn't believe that crap about me messing around with Val.

“If who got married?” I said.

She pointed at me and, in that slow way she had, brought her finger back to her chest.

I couldn't help it. I laughed. Not because I thought it was funny, but because I was shocked. She looked right through me, like I wasn't there. She wasn't joking, and I wished I could take it back.

“I'm not laughing at you, sweetheart. You surprised me is all. I didn't expect you to say that.” She didn't make a sound. She was gonna make me answer her. “You know we can't get married.”

“Why?”

“I don't think Liam would like that.”

She shrugged, 'cause it was a stupid reason. Liam had kicked her out.

“I'm a good wife,” she said.

“I know you'd be a good wife. I like your cooking and you clean the house and you know how to keep the books. I mean, if it was just about that, or about me wanting to be with you, sure, but you're too young to get married.”

Staying out at the farmhouse with Wavy and Donal, it was something near to playing house, except Wavy didn't play at things.

“Here's the thing: in a couple weeks you start school, right? Leave the house by seven, when Val's still asleep. After school, you can go to my house or down to the shop. Stay there 'til it's time to close. Then we can have dinner, you can do your homework, watch TV, and I'll take you up to the farmhouse before bed.”

Wavy didn't answer. No nod, no shrug, nothing.

“Hey,” I said. “Hey.”

For the first time ever, I reached over and touched her hair without waiting for some kind of invitation. Even that didn't get me a reaction. She didn't lean into me and she didn't push me away. There had to be something to make my offer stick and sitting there looking at the back door of my house, I thought of it. I started the truck and headed to the hardware store. Got there just before it closed. I came around to Wavy's side and almost spilled her on the pavement because of the way she was leaning up against the door.

“Come on, we gotta get something,” I said.

She came after me, dragging the heels of her new boots. While I went looking for a clerk, she stood in the store's main aisle, staring through a display of car wax.

When I came back, she was still doing that. I had the feeling again like I'd come up on a wild animal. Only instead of a fawn, she was like a fox kit I saw once, hit by the side of the road. On its feet, but dying.

The key in my palm was hot off the grinder, smelled like graphite.

“This is for you. So you can go to my place any time you want, whether I'm there or not. Only other person got a key to my house is Old Man Cutcheon, but that's so, you know, if something ever happened to me. “

I held the key out to Wavy, but she just looked at it. If she wouldn't take it, I figured that would mean she was done with me. I wasn't ready to reach that point, so I kept talking.

“I bought that house three years ago. Mr. Cutcheon co-signed for me on the loan. If I can do a few more deals like with the Barracuda, and with the extra money coming from Liam, I figure it'll be paid off in two years. It's nothing fancy, but it's my house. Where I don't gotta put up with nobody's bullshit. That's why I'm giving you this. So it can be your house, too. So you can have a place to go. Even if you can't live with me, that other bedroom's for you. I'm gonna clean it out, so it'll be your place.”

Finally she reached for the key, squeezed it tight in her fist, and then dropped it down in her boot.

Leaving the hardware store, I asked her where she wanted to go.

“Home,” she said. I wished that wasn't the farmhouse, but it was.

When we got there, a strange car was parked in the drive. A '72 Buick wagon. The nurse. I turned off the engine, but before I could open my door, Wavy pulled the keys out of my hand and stuck them back in the ignition.

“You don't want me to come in?” I said.

She shook her head.

“I know you're mad, but will you at least give me a kiss?” I said.

She opened the door, got out, and walked up the porch steps without looking back. Sitting there, trying to decide what to do, I saw her answer. She'd written LIAR in the dust on the Willys dashboard.

I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach. Not like she'd kicked me, but like life had. Kicked her, too, while it was at it.

 

PART THREE

 

1

PATTY

September 1982

There had been several home nursing assignments where Patty felt she was a member of the family, but the Quinns was the first assignment that made her feel like a patient in the asylum. When she got to the house, the only person there besides the patient was Casey, the day nurse.

“Nobody's been here. When the ambulance and I got here with Mrs. Quinn, the back door was unlocked,” Casey said. She was one of those perky, up-and-at-'em people who harangued injured patients out of bed and into their physical therapy.

The house was cleaner than Patty had expected. The outside hadn't been painted in years, but the floors had been mopped and the bathroom smelled of bleach. There were fresh sheets on the bed and clean dishes in the cupboard.

She knew there were children—a little boy who had been injured in the wreck and an older girl—but there was no sign of them. Mrs. Quinn's bedroom was in the front, off the parlor. The other bedroom was off the dining room. There was a full-sized bed in there. No toys or children's clothes, just some crayon marks on the wall behind the bed.

After she gave Mrs. Quinn her next dose of pain medication, Patty ventured up the narrow attic stairs. There, she found a bed with a handmade quilt on it. Only the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling suggested it was a child's room.

It was dark when a vehicle pulled up outside. After a few minutes the back door opened, and Patty got to the kitchen just as a blond girl came in and slammed the door.

“Hi. I'm Patty. I'm the night nurse who's here to take care of your mommy. What's your name?”

The girl took two cautious steps into the kitchen.

“It's okay, honey. Did your daddy tell you that a nurse was coming? I'm here to make sure she takes her medication and gets better.”

The girl moved around the other side of the table, and it dawned on Patty that she was planning to dash past her. The back door opened again and a large man with greasy black hair came in. He looked at Patty for an instant before his gaze went to the girl, who turned and ran up the stairs.

“Wavy. Goddamnit, Wavy!” The man started after her, yelling, “You can't just say something like that. What did I lie to you about?”

He thundered up the stairs, and Patty heard his footsteps and his voice overhead, but nothing from the girl. They were up there for nearly two hours, long past what should have been the girl's bedtime. Several times, Patty considered going up to check on them, but each time, she convinced herself it was better to wait.

Eventually, the man stomped down the stairs slowly. He seemed startled to find Patty sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her. She didn't let it bother her. Sometimes she had to fend for herself. Standing up, she held out her hand.

“Hello. I'm Patty Bruce, the night nurse that Mr. Quinn hired to take care of his wife.”

“Sorry about the ruckus. I hope we didn't wake her up.” He shook her hand. “I'm Jesse Joe Kellen. I'm a friend of the family.”

“Is that Mrs. Quinn's daughter?”

“Yeah, that's Wavy. She's a little upset.”

“It's not unusual. Having a parent badly injured can be very troubling for children. They're not used to seeing their parents helpless.”

He nodded and absently brought a hand to his hair to smooth down a rooster tail that stuck up on his crown.

“I'm real sorry for barging in here. Is there anything you need? I'll be back in the morning to get Wavy, so I can bring you whatever groceries you need. And Wavy did the laundry, so there's clean towels.”

“Do you know when Mr. Quinn is coming?”

“Well, he—he don't actually live here. He lives down the hill. You know where you pass that other road, where there's a couple trailers?”

“Am I to understand that Wavy will be here alone tonight?”

“Not if you're here,” he said.

“I don't say this to be rude, but my duties don't include childcare.”

Mr. Kellen laughed. “Wavy don't need a babysitter. She'll get herself to bed, get her own breakfast. It'd be best if you didn't bother her.”

“Bother her?”

“Just pretend she's not here. If you hear her get up in the middle of the night, don't come checking on her. She likes to be left alone.”

Patty was so confused, she couldn't think of anything to say. She pushed her glasses up on her head and rubbed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. While she was doing that, Mr. Kellen walked out the kitchen door. She thought of going after him, but it seemed pointless.

After she checked on Mrs. Quinn at midnight, Patty went into the living room and lay down on what looked like a new sofa. She must have dozed, because she woke to the sound of someone in the kitchen. Looking into Mrs. Quinn's room, Patty found her still asleep, or as close to sleep as the pain medication brought her.

For a moment, a light flashed in the kitchen, the fridge being opened and closed, but otherwise it was all darkness. Then a cupboard opened and a dish clinked softly on the countertop. Was the girl eating? At that hour? In the dark? Or was she sleepwalking?

Standing on the other side of the swing door, Patty was about to say the girl's name, when she remembered Mr. Kellen's cryptic warning:
if you hear her get up in the middle of the night, don't come checking on her
. Wasn't there a fairy tale with a warning like that? Beauty and the Beast? Blackbeard? After a few minutes the girl went back up the stairs and solved Patty's dilemma.